Re: In memoriam : RI Obituaries
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2013 11:08 am
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I just read those amazing words from Doris Lessing.
Made me cry.
Thanks JD.
They're on page 2 so I'll quote them again.
viewtopic.php?p=527351#p527351
Sorry again JD for all my craziness.
And to everyone else.
Oh, and thanks Doris.
...
I just read those amazing words from Doris Lessing.
Made me cry.
Thanks JD.
They're on page 2 so I'll quote them again.
viewtopic.php?p=527351#p527351
“At the risk of boring you, I must repeat, I am afraid, repeat, reiterate, reemphasize, it is not a question of your arriving on Planet Earth as you leave here. You will lose nearly all memory of your past existence. You will each of you come to yourselves, perhaps alone, perhaps in the company of each other, but with only a vague feeling of recognition, and probably disassociated, disorientated, ill, discouraged, and unable to believe, when you are told what your task really is.
You will wake up, as it were, but there will be a period while you are waking which will be like the recovery from an illness, or like the emergence into good air from a poisoned one. Some of you may choose not to wake, for the waking will be so painful, and the knowledge of your condition and Earth’s condition so agonizing, you will be like drug addicts: you may prefer to continue to breathe in oblivion. And when you have understood that you are in the process of awakening, that you have something to get done, you will have absorbed enough of the characteristics of Earthmen to be distrustful, surly, grudging, suspicious.
You will be like a drowning person who drowns his rescuer, so violently will you struggle in your panic terror.
“And, when you have become aroused to your real condition, and have recovered from the shame or embarrassment of seeing to what depths you have sunk, you will then begin the task of arousing others, and you will find that you are in the position of rescuer of a drowning person, or a doctor in a city that has an epidemic of madness. The drowning person wants to be rescued, but can’t prevent himself struggling. The mad person has intermittent fits of sanity, but in between behaves as if his doctor were his enemy.
“And so, my friends: that’s it. That’s my message to you. It’s going to be tough. Every bit as tough as you expect.”
Sorry again JD for all my craziness.
And to everyone else.
Oh, and thanks Doris.
...